Chickens Don’t Care About Chicks

[Chickrus]

I have a broody hen that hatched 4 chicks, I bought some more hoping she would take them in and show them the ropes. She tried to kill the new ones, so I put her and her new 4 new chicks in a separate coop and put the new chicks in with my existing flock and they get along just fine. The new chicks were only a week old when I put them in with the flock and it's been 2 weeks now with no problem.
I did notice that the chicks with their mother are a whole lot smarter than the ones that are kinda on their own.

 

[Msfur08]

Yeah. I feel bad for my chickens. They’re all “orphans”, none raised by a mother hen. I look forward to hatching our own chicks with a broody hen maybe next year.

 

[Chickens4Life101]

I was wondering if some chickens are just really chill. I thought maybe they’re used to new additions since they have all come in twos or threes (and the rooster cane alone) over the course of the summer. Plus my neighbor’s chickens sometimes come up to the fence (including two roosters) and say hi and leave. So, maybe they’re just used to new birds showing up.

Plus, the chicks aren’t exactly “new” since they have been next to them in the coop for a month now.

And the breeds I have are are pretty friendly in general. Many of them often let me and my daughters pet them and pick them up, sometimes even approaching us for attention when we are sitting outside. My Speckled Sussex regularly delays getting on the roost in the evenings and prefers to walk around us until we pick her up and put her on there. I know she can do it herself because I’ve seen her do it. But then again, I also have a cat who jumps on my shoulder to be carried multiple times per day. We really just have excessively friendly animals.

I feel like you lucked out! Since they have been seeing each other through the coop, that probably helps things. When we introduced chicks that were next to the big girls' coop, they integrated very well and there also wasn't a lot of pecking going on

 

[Lazy Farmer]

 

[Chickrus]

I was surprised that my Roo became mister mom, I think he likes the extra attention. My Roo BA BA Buddy just loves the little guys.The hens could care less about them, stealing their food away. At least their not aggressive towards them like my broody mom was.